Making Fen'Harel

Chapter 15

Things had escalated so quickly. There were more and more attacks, getting closer and closer to the fortress. Fen'Harel had became hard, he wore a constant mask of defiance and leadership. The people that trusted their lives to him, did so unquestionably. They followed him to battle, some even laying down their lives for a cause they would never live to see be reality.

The deaths weighed heavily on his shoulders and his closest spymasters and generals took notice, as did his lover. They were all concerned that things would go south, but no one had the courage to say so.

In the last days before he would send her back to her own time, he had tried to enjoy her, but life had become busy. At least, while they were awake.

In his sleep, he visited her every night. Some nights they only sat and talked. They talked for hours and hours, time meant nothing there. She didn't share very much about the future itself, only about her life in the Clan. She described the aravels, and told him some of their legends about the Gods.

He shared stories of his childhood as well. It turned out that they were not so different after all. He too had been a thief as a child, taking things and watching from a distance as his victim searched for the lost item for a time. He had been somewhat of a pest on the village, mostly because of boredom. Farm life had never interested him, and while he spent his allotted hours in the fields hiding and dreaming of the Fade, or working slowly, he grew tired of village life quickly.

Before long, he could no longer find new things in the Fade. That made him hate his village more, he wanted to leave by the time he was barely a young man. His mother had sternly said no, her thick accent had worn through when she was angry. "Ya aren't goin' anywhere, ya hear me boy?" She always said that, right after she popped him with a ratty kitchen towel. His father would laugh hardily when he requested to leave, but eventually he understood. He cried when Solas left to venture the world, silent tears that Solas had seen then as failure, but now he saw just how proud they had been.

"If they could see me now.. I wonder what they might think." He said solemnly. They sat against a large tree, their hands tangled together and her head on his shoulder.

"They would be proud to have raised such a man full of good cause." She replied, her thumb rubbing softly across the top of his hand as she spoke.

He nodded numbly. "Perhaps."

She rolled her eyes and jabbed a finger into his ribs, causing him to jerk away and giggle. "Perhaps my arse! I'm sure they would be."

"What about your parents? Are they proud of your cause?"

She pursed her lips. She didn't like speaking of the future's events very much. "They say so. It seems a worthy cause. So I suppose they are, yeah?"

He flashed a smile at her. "I love when you do that."

"Do what?" She smiled as well.

"When you add 'yeah' to the end of your statement." He pressed his lips to her cheek and she softened into it. His lips lingered there for a long moment before he pulled back, resting once again against the trunk of the large tree.

She laid her head back against his shoulder. She tried not to think about how she must go back to her own time. She wondered if it would hurt, or how would she deal with the memories of this? How could she go on with the charade? Before long, the Fade was slipping away and she could see the sun pricking through her eyelids. She rolled away from the window and groaned.

She heard him laugh sleepily behind her, and she turned back quickly. She was all messy hair and attitude this early in the morning. "No laughing this early!" She yawned as if to emphasize her point.